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If you don't trust the GM to provide you with a fun experience, why play at all with that GM?Trust is built through honesty, integrity, and consistency. Trust is built through not randomly changing stuff around, or seemingly randomly.
That's what puzzles me. I -- literally -- see no reason for the GM to arbitrarily deprive the party of an interesting piece of expensive candy. Even in a hardscrabble frontier town -- and i know, I've lived in those towns -- there are still luxuries to be had from time to time, precisely because the people living in those towns are acutely aware of how nice such luxuries can be. (Fresh milk in Alaska can cost $10 or so a gallon, because no matter how much powdered milk you have in the house, sometimes you just want the real thing.)
But the other thing is -- the player wants the candy for a reason. Maybe she has some cunning plan for which the candy is a key prop. Maybe this is just an opportunity for her to get some role-playing in as a trust-fund heiress who really wants to be lounging around her Mayfair flat in a designer dressing gown.
The big issue that I see here is all the GMs sitting there saying "I decided," "in my world," "my story that I am telling." It's not your story, but a shared one, and players get to help create our world and our story through their actions. If there's no actual reason for me to say "no," then I will say "yes" to most of the gaudy nonsense that the players ask for -- usually the other players end up being the ones who say "no" to their fellow players, if "no" gets said at all. And if I need to say "no," I usually have an actual reason that I can share with them, and "because I decided that this is a frontier town with no time for such luxuries" isn't such a reason. A better approach though, would be to create an interesting social encounter where you meet the kind of nut who would be the candymaker in Broken Arm, Yukon and everyone has fun buying candy. If I'm bringing my A game, I can even plan for the candy to become important later (it turns out the ogre mage has a sweet tooth).
As to how I find people to play with -- everything in the previous two paragraphs is basically devoted to one thing. My table is, or should be, fun, because your character can do whatever the hell you want. Doing cool stuff is fun. Winning is fun. Being able to solve an issue your way (instead of the way I had planned) is fun. If you get locked into playing mother-may-I with the game master, the fun level drops dramatically. And it normally only takes a session or two for people to realize that overbearing GMs are less fun than non-overbearing ones.
It amazes me that you find anyone to play with if that is what you expect of everyone, Orfamay.
Answered previously. But if you want a shorter, pithier version.....
Ask any comedy troupe which is more fun to perform, scripted comedy or improv. They'll almost universally tell you that improv is much more fun.
Now scripted comedy is usually better for the audience, because you don't know whether the jokes will fall flat. But improv is better for the players. And in Pathfinder, there is no audience.
Make your table an improv troupe. It's more fun for everyone.
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Deviating from Pathfinder much is actually a pretty good way to get most anyone I know to bow out of a game. Most of us want to play Pathfinder (ideally Pathfinder + Dreamscarred Press material). Most of the players I know have no interest in someone's GM whimsy adventures, nor someone's "magic makes you age 20 years when you use it" adventures, or whatever else.Of course, like our dear Illithid notes, this is irrelevant to whether or not it's even a good idea to deviate from the norm on a whim anyway (it usually isn't).Here are the clearest examples you've given in this thread, Ashiel. I feel it is pretty dismissive of anyone changing what is used in the game to produce a campaign that is not "everything included kitchen sink". Dragon-sized windmills? Perhaps.
Eureka, we've got it now. We've got this issue licked.
Okay, let me clarify.
I was talking about how most of the people I know what to play Pathfinder. We don't want to play someone's Frankenstien's monster that loosely resembles Pathfinder. We want to play with the core assumtpions that we can fight monsters, get treasure, craft items, buy magic shwag, get experience points, etc. The more someone has modded Pathfinder, the harder it is to pitch it because Pathfinder is a fun game and we're clearly looking to play Pathfinder.
No where in that was I intending to imply that I was suggesting that every piece of material ever written for Pathfinder be included. Hell no. Loads of material written for Pathfinder is utter garbage. I was trying to signify with the example of "using magic makes you age 20 years" that I was talking about things that deviate from the norms of the Pathfinder rules.
Context is important. When I was talking about it not being a good idea to deviate from the norm on a whim, it was in direct response to Oformay talking about the system and consequences of changing stuff around.
This seems to be a misunderstanding. I was trying to convey a thought, apparently biffed it, and it got delivered wrong or something.
I'm not even now suggesting that you can't rock the boat a bit (I gave an example of where I drastically altered many core assumptions about the game), just that you let everyone know ahead of time. :P
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Because confusion is contagious. Sissyl thought I was saying something I wasn't, I thought Sissyl was reacting to something Sissyl wasn't, so I was trying to make my point clearer and was repeating it over and over, since it seemed that - for some unknown reason - Sissyl kept trying to imply that it was somehow badwrong to expect that the rules of the game be kept unless explicitly changed (because as far as I understood we were talking about spellcasting services and item availability; and we were for several posts even before this confusion).
I'm sitting over here thinking "Dear God, how do I break this down to be simpler? I literally cannot think of a clearer way to say 'Look, you can step outside of Pathfinder, but you need to let people know you're going to be stepping outside of Pathfinder'", trying to figure out what's so hard about this concept as to invoke responses about whether or not it's okay or not to run a game where bags of holding don't work very well.
Confusion is a dangerous thing. It has a % chance to make you punch your wizard.
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I never claimed the players should not be informed. I have repeatedly said they should. I even added that if the change removed certain things (condition damage), that should be accounted for. That is not an issue.
What is the issue is that, by your comments about whims above, you still seem to think changing things makes for a worse game. I see it as variety.
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What is the issue is that, by your comments about whims above, you still seem to think changing things makes for a worse game. I see it as variety.
Since I seem to be the Ashiel Whisper today-->There is no bone to pick with variety, but as was stated before unnanounced major changes, and things that deviate too far outside the norm are an issue.
As an example of things outside the norm and that may be "whimsey:
A GM may want to make magic a mysterious and dangerous thing so the GM may have a rule that says "Every time you cast a spell there is a 2% chance you suffer a side effect. Roll a d20 to determine what bad thing happens". One of these bad things could be you aging 20 years.
I am going to take a guess here, but in the example in the above paragraph Ashiel would like for the GM to mention this variant magic to the group vs just saying, "this is how it will be for this game".
That is likely part of the "whimsey" factor.
PS: As an aside since Ashiel had admittedly run a game well outside of the norms <---Part of the reason I don't think Ashiel has a problem with variety.
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What is the issue is that, by your comments about whims above, you still seem to think changing things makes for a worse game. I see it as variety.
Since I seem to be the Ashiel Whisper today-->There is no bone to pick with variety, but as was stated before unnanounced major changes, and things that deviate too far outside the norm are an issue.
As an example of things outside the norm and that may be "whimsey:
A GM may want to make magic a mysterious and dangerous thing so the GM may have a rule that says "Every time you cast a spell there is a 2% chance you suffer a side effect. Roll a d20 to determine what bad thing happens". One of these bad things could be you aging 20 years.
I am going to take a guess here, but in the example in the above paragraph Ashiel would like for the GM to mention this variant magic to the group vs just saying, "this is how it will be for this game".
That is likely part of the "whimsey" factor.
PS: As an aside since Ashiel had admittedly run a game well outside of the norms <---Part of the reason I don't think Ashiel has a problem with variety.
Yeah, surprise houserules that seem to be born purely from the whims of the GM are a thing. I recall being supremely pissed when I wrote up a bard for a 3.5 campaign, only to be told mid-session that I would still be taking Arcane Spell Failure from my light armor because the GM thought "it would make things more interesting."
It seems like the main point of contention here is where one crosses the line between normal campaign flavor and things you ought to run by the party beforehand. There's not really an ironclad rule, so I'd just go with the general guideline of asking yourself "If you were playing instead of GMing, would you want to know this ahead of time?"
I never claimed the players should not be informed. I have repeatedly said they should. I even added that if the change removed certain things (condition damage), that should be accounted for. That is not an issue.
What is the issue is that, by your comments about whims above, you still seem to think changing things makes for a worse game. I see it as variety.
It can be both. Variety just means different. It doesn't mean good.
Of course. But sameness is, in my eyes, more often bad than variety. Sameness never changes.
Of course. But sameness is, in my eyes, more often bad than variety.
That may be a fundamental disagreement, then. PF is a good game, and something like twenty years of game design experience covering tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds, has gone into making it so.
Reinventing the wheel for the sake of reinventing the wheel will simply give you a trapezoid with an off-center axle. But it won't make the ride any smoother, won't make the trip any faster, and won't improve the efficiency of the car. In fact, it will make things worse.
There's not really an ironclad rule, so I'd just go with the general guideline of asking yourself "If you were playing instead of GMing, would you want to know this ahead of time?"This would be a good errata for CRB or DMG. kind of the golden rule applied to RPGs.
To be honest, everyone who decides to try their hand at GMing is going to have good and bad ideas, even after years of experience you can still make some bad calls. Its both easy and hard at the same time, and when we're players we can project some high expectations on them too.
"my story" vs "our story"; ability to improv and say "yes, and" or "yes, but"; roll with the punches, etc all come with experience, and it takes time for most people to get to the level where players just cant wait for game night.
Yeah, I'm sure a lot of the time a GM pulls out a no-warning houserule/deviation from accepted norms, it's because they think what they're doing would make the game better for the group and haven't anticipated the problems it might cause. The GM's cool little change to make the game more interesting can be the player's game-ruining surprise rule, or have unanticipated knock-on effects that cause problems down the line.
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Let me throw my 2 cents in here. What Ashiel seems to be saying is that, in her opinion, "Pathfinder" means "game that is described in these rulebooks, exactly, with nothing added or substracted". Let's call it Ashiel.pathfinder, to avoid confusion later in this post.
On the other hand, when Ashiel talks about "modded pathfinder", she refers to the same thing, but with any number of things changed. Maybe magic works differently, maybe cities don't sell wizzsticks, whatever. Let's call this Ashiel.pathfinder.modded, again, to avoid confusion.
Ashiel is not, as far as I understand, saying that Ashiel.pathfinder.modded is badwrongunfun. Neither is she saying that Ashiel.pathfinder is the best thing ever. It is just a distinction between the color of the box icecream comes in-red or brown. Taste of the icecream is independent of the color of the box.
What she is saying, (again, as far as I understand) is that, by default, players expect to be playing Ashiel.pathfinder when they are told "let's play Pathfinder!", so if GM instead springs Ashiel.pathfinder.modded on them, they would be somewhat pissed, and neither GM nor the players would like it. More than that, she says(and I agree) that the players should be told about all changes between Ashiel.pathfinder and Ashiel.pathfinder.modded before they even so much as think about playing and most certainly(perhaps more importantly) before they start designing their player characters. If players see a red box, they expect to get strawbery icecream. If they instead get chocolate, they are disappointed.
On the other side of the conversation, Sissyl seems to be saying that "Pathfinder" is "this game with turn-based combat system, skills, spells, etc". So when Ashiel says "If you delete X item from the game, it is no longer pathfinder"(meaning it is now Ashiel.pathfinder.modded), Sissyl thinks "Not pathfinder? What is this creature talking about? It is quite obviously pathfinder, we only changed one little thing.". He then replies saying that it is, in fact, pathfinder, and Ashiel is wrong. And confusion ensues.
Just my understanding. Both parties can tell me if they think I am wrong on this.
This has evolved into a very circular discussion about semantics... :|
Who cares if you call it "Pathfinder", "modded Pathfinder" or "Mr. Mxyzptlk"?
You all agree you should be honest and tell your players upfront what is and what isn't part of your game... What the hell is discussion even about at this point?
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I'd just like to say I love you Wraithstrike. My clerics will protect your pilgrims. :)
Indeed, we will:)
Who cares if you call it "Pathfinder", "modded Pathfinder" or "Mr. Mxyzptlk"?
If a Pathfinder game says "rednifhtap," does it get banished to its home plane?
What the hell is discussion even about at this point?
At what point does a modification to the core assumptions of the game become a house rule and thus require upfront disclosure to the players.
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Klara pretty much hit all the nails, I think.
As to the question "At what point does a modification to the core assumptions of the game become a house rule", I would answer "when you make a modification to the core assumptions". That does seem reasonable, right?
EDIT: I mean, if I went in and changed something as minor as making full plate cost 2000 gp instead of 1500, I should tell the players. If I dropped splint mail to 100 gp, I should tell the players. If I made it so that you cannot buy nunchaku in a particular area of the world the campaign is going to be set in, I should tell the players. If I change the way Power Attack works, I should tell the players. If I change the prices of scribing scrolls, I should tell the players. If I change the way the death & dying rules work, I should tell the players. If I change the frequency of casting services being available, I should tell the players. If I change the racial modifiers for a race, I should tell the players. If I add or remove a race, I should tell the players. If I change the way alignment works, I should tell the players. If I change the way trading works, I should tell the players. If I change the way that experience works, I should tell the players. If I change the way any feat, spell, magic item, or class feature, I should tell the players. If I change how any mechanic in the game, from falling to making saving throws to critical hits to attack rolls and armor class, I should tell the players.
Literally everything I have mentioned here is a house rule, and there are many more house rules that could be made. If a player cannot trust what the rulebook says about the game, you've changed enough that it probably needs to mentioning.
Design Manager
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To be perfectly honest, I would find it ridiculous if I traveled to an arctic settlement and could buy tigers, no matter the size of the settlement.
*** A GM who did not protest if one of my fellow PCs wanted to buy a tiger in an arctic town would lose a lot in my eyes.
Conversely, a GM telling me I had to travel to the jungle to buy a tiger because tigers only exist in the jungle would lose a lot in my eyes.
I think you're really arguing a different point than Ashiel has been making though; the CRB tells you what is generally true regarding a party's ability to obtain certain goods and services. It's fine for a particular settlement to vary from this standard, but if every town fails to meet this standard, the party should be made aware of that fact, because it is a deviation from the expected parameters of the game and could drastically impact the player's choices. I, for example, would probably never play a Fighter in a world where I had no expectation of obtaining magic weapons and armor. I may not play a wizard if magic has a 50% chance of blowing up in my face. I probably wouldn't want the group to skip out on having a full healer option if we can't buy wands and potions.
Even minor changes to the economy of the game can drastically change certain options viability, so a GM who is going to change those assumptions should be clear up front about it.
As to the question "At what point does a modification to the core assumptions of the game become a house rule", I would answer "when you make a modification to the core assumptions".
Okay, so the campaign starts off in Newbieville. The GM has decided that when the PCs hit level four or so, one of the plot arcs that the GM will introduce is a trade dispute that causes silk to explode in price. Instead of being 10 gp/1 square yard, the price is going to be 100 gp/1 square yard, if it can be found at all.
Does this require that the GM publish a house rule before the game starts that says "At some point during this game, the price of silk will increase from 10 gp/1 square yard to 100 gp/1 square yard?"
Is a house rule that says "Equipment and goods prices may change dramatically throughout this campaign" suffice as fair heads-up to the players?
Or is this considered not important enough to have to declare it a house rule?
Or a fourth option?
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Design Manager
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As to the question "At what point does a modification to the core assumptions of the game become a house rule", I would answer "when you make a modification to the core assumptions".Okay, so the campaign starts off in Newbieville. The GM has decided that when the PCs hit level four or so, one of the plot arcs that the GM will introduce is a trade dispute that causes silk to explode in price. Instead of being 10 gp/1 square yard, the price is going to be 100 gp/1 square yard, if it can be found at all.
Does this require that the GM publish a house rule before the game starts that says "At some point during this game, the price of silk will increase from 10 gp/1 square yard to 100 gp/1 square yard?"
Is a house rule that says "Equipment and goods prices may change dramatically throughout this campaign" suffice as fair heads-up to the players?
Or is this considered not important enough to have to declare it a house rule?
Or a fourth option?
In that instance, you haven't actually changed a core assumption of the game, so you probably don't need to detail it up front. The base price of silk is still 10gp a square yard, modified by this trade dispute. Presumably, areas of the world not affected by this dispute are still selling silk for 10gp/yard, and resolving the trade dispute will return the price of silk to normal. You haven't fundamentally changed the game, and in fact, if it weren't for the fact that the baseline price of silk conforms to the expectations laid out in the core books, the price spike wouldn't even be much of a hook. The change established by the story actually reinforces the importance of the baseline assumption.
This falls under the clause of "Generally [X is true]". As long as X (this price, guideline, or principle laid out in the CRB) is generally true, then regional or political variances are fine. It's when X is generally not true that players should be informed up front of the deviation.
Ive noticed that PC's in games tend to leave their horses in stables that are not used by NPC's. I used that to keep my tiger in the stable.
Now the GM could have said the stable had horses and the innkeeper didnt trust my tiger but he didn't.
I think you're really arguing a different point than Ashiel has been making though; the CRB tells you what is generally true regarding a party's ability to obtain certain goods and services. It's fine for a particular settlement to vary from this standard, but if every town fails to meet this standard, the party should be made aware of that fact.....
I think this is part of the problem. Ashiel never was suggesting that every settlement of the same type be clones of each other with regard to item availibilty.
Good point.
This falls under the clause of "Generally [X is true]". As long as X (this price, guideline, or principle laid out in the CRB) is generally true, then regional or political variances are fine. It's when X is generally not true that players should be informed up front of the deviation.
Thanks for the explanation. That is how I do it as well.
If you expect the answers to
"What is this discussion about?"
and
"What is this thread about?"to be the same thing, you're much more optimistic about forum communications than I am.
And to be more clear, Lemmy asked what the discussion was about at this point. I gave an answer based on what seemed to be the pertinent issue at the time.
Threads obviously veer from their original topic, which anyone can see if they read all of the posts instead of skimming some of them.
If the actual moderators feel it's gone too off topic, they nudge back on or lock The thread.
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As to the question "At what point does a modification to the core assumptions of the game become a house rule", I would answer "when you make a modification to the core assumptions".Okay, so the campaign starts off in Newbieville. The GM has decided that when the PCs hit level four or so, one of the plot arcs that the GM will introduce is a trade dispute that causes silk to explode in price. Instead of being 10 gp/1 square yard, the price is going to be 100 gp/1 square yard, if it can be found at all.
Does this require that the GM publish a house rule before the game starts that says "At some point during this game, the price of silk will increase from 10 gp/1 square yard to 100 gp/1 square yard?"
How many times do I have to say that I, and the rules, note that there can be exceptions? I've covered this, a lot. I said exceptions can exist, but this is different from being the norm. And, it would seem, that the standard rules would apply outside of the embargo (meaning the PCs could travel to where the silk isn't banned and get some silk, maybe even make that an adventure unto itself).
Is a house rule that says "Equipment and goods prices may change dramatically throughout this campaign" suffice as fair heads-up to the players?
Yes. It's like how you get a lot of people telling you in Baldur's Gate that iron is crap due to plot and normal weapons and armor break easy. If you were going to run Baldur's Gate as a game, telling players that on a natural 1, non-masterwork/magic items are going to break would be a good idea.
Same thing as saying "Iron's super valuable because of plot reasons" would be reasonable. Just giving them the heads up would be polite and reasonable.
Or is this considered not important enough to have to declare it a house rule?
Or a fourth option?
I'm not sure what else to tell you, dude.
I saw a picture of a Dachshund in Chainmail. Just sayin'.
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